Floral Thank You Cards, by Studiokgraphicdesign on Etsy

Before the shop opened last Thursday, I was busy as a bee getting everything ready. The following couple of days were a blur of activity, too, but in a different way. There was my first sale! There were many many compliments from friends and family and strangers. There were strangers that became friends overnight. And there were business relationships that were formed. And to think I was nervous about putting myself out there! I don't think I truly imagined how positive, fun, and humbling an experience this would be for me.

I knew that I would be making things that I loved, and would be putting myself out there for the world to see. But I simply could not envision how loving and congratulatory the response would be from all of you. I want to send each and every one of you that has reached out to me in the past few days a personal thank you. My virtual thank you cards are in the mail to all of you!

While working with by business coach Michelle last summer, she reminded me that milestones have to be celebrated. I've never actually been that great at celebrating achievements - I'd achieve goals without really realizing (often because I hadn't written out the goals) and then keep going, forever in pursuit of some other goal I didn't know I was going towards. This time, with the shop, I made realistic goals (I'll talk more specifically about these next week), and so this weekend was the time to celebrate the fact that it was finally launched. How did I celebrate? I had a spring pedicure, I drank champagne with my husband, and I rested. Oh yeah, I also bought myself some sexy over-the-knee socks. I wore a pair while I drank champagne - how's that for doubly celebrating!!

So what's a girl to do once she's achieved a major goal? Well, this girl is going to keep going. I have several things in the works which are very exciting for me: some advertising and some tutorials that I'm working on.  It's also time to tweak the website, make it better and more community-based. It's time to revisit my Big Plan and make sure the next steps I take are building the business in the way I want it to grow. But as April says in a recent video on how to focus your creative business time, you can't expect to bring people and have them stay if you have nothing to show them. It's great to work on relationships and marketing, and it's exciting to bring a new audience to your site, but if you have nothing to offer them, they won't stick around. If I want to build relationships with people, and build a bigger community within manusmade, I'll have to give you something in return. And that, my friends, is what I will be working on in the next while.

So, thank you for all your love, and I know this is the beginning of a really beautiful relationship. Love to you all! Tania xoxo.